I was involved in… erm… liberating a family of abused dogs from a backyard breeder. This is the only time I’ve ever done something in my life that would be considered wrong in the eyes of authority; I’ve always been very straight-laced. However, my brother has fallen on the wrong side of the law quite a few times.

I call my mum to give her an update on the situation and let her know I’m safe, which she’s glad to hear, but she’s also annoyed that I’m doing something she considers to be wrong. 

Unfortunately, I decided to cheer her up by saying, “Well, I guess my brother and I do finally have one thing in common; we’re both criminals!”

I’m going to hear about this for the rest of my life.

My mum, while not being completely tech-illiterate like some people of her age, still needs a lot of troubleshooting help from me and my brother — setting up accounts, working out error messages or emails, and that kind of thing.

She wants to set up an online banking account and calls me to guide her through it via phone. After a bit of chaos, we decide it’s easier if I set it up on my computer while explaining it to her on the phone.

Me: “All right, it’s asking for a login password. I’m going to use [password variant she uses everywhere, slightly changed up to make it safer].”

Mum: “Oh, yes, I’ll be able to remember that!”

Me: “Yeah. Okay, the security questions are the usual. I’ll put in your first pet and where you met Dad.”

Mum: “Okay.”

Me: “You’ll also need a sort of PIN number. I’ll just use [number combination she also uses everywhere that is, at least, not a birthday or other easy number to figure out].”

Mum: *Long pause* “Sure.”

Me: “Okay, now I’m going to enter your credit card details from that bank so it’ll be connected—”

Mum: “Wait a minute!”

Me: “Sorry?”

Mum: “How do you know my credit card details?! And remember all these other things so well?”

Me: “Mum. I’ve been setting up accounts and changing passwords and ordering or booking stuff online for you for years.”

Mum: “Oh, right.”

Me: “I know your online identity better than you, to be honest.” *Laughing* “I could probably hack every account of yours without you even noticing. Aren’t you glad I’m a good daughter instead and help you?”

Mum: *Also laughing* “You are a good girl for tolerating your silly old mum’s problems.”

She’s not had any troubles with online banking yet, but she still keeps joking about how I’m someday going to drain her account and run away with all her data and passwords.

It’s early on a weekday morning. My husband is up, getting ready for work, and our one-year-old daughter has been up with him this entire time. Having just climbed out of bed myself, I meet him at the bathroom while he cleans up, checking on what has happened while I slept.

Along comes my daughter, waddling aimlessly up and down the hall. As she circles around me for another lap, I groggily reach down to ruffle her hair in passing…

And jerk wide awake when my hand comes back red and sticky!

I snatch her up before she can waddle off again, searching her over in a blind panic… only for my husband to burst out laughing a few seconds later, leaving me slack-jawed.

My daughter didn’t have some sort of head injury, thankfully, but a giant gob of strawberry jam smooshed into the back of her hair. 

We still don’t know how it got there to this day — my husband had only cereal that morning — but it’s been an amusing highlight of my child’s toddler years to tell all our friends and family.

In fourth or fifth grade, I start reading the “Harry Potter” series. I’m reading the third book in the car while my mother drives. I come across a word I don’t know. I’m a very innocent and sheltered kid.

Me: “Mom?”

Mom: “Yeah?”

Me: “What’s a bitch?”

Mom: *After a stunned silence* “What on earth are you reading?”

Me: “The Prisoner of Azkaban. Aunt Marge said, ‘If there’s something wrong with the bitch, there’ll be something wrong with the pup’.”

I don’t remember what she told me, but I’m pretty sure I nearly gave her a heart attack.

My daughter is of kindergarten age and is invited to a birthday party. If you’ve been there, you know what nightmare they are. There are about twenty kids from the classroom, plus their parents and siblings, plus the birthday kid’s relatives and family friends. Cue over three hours of barely controlled chaos.

Needless to say, when it’s finally time to cut the cake, the ladies in charge of doing so are taking no nonsense: they hack away at the cake, slam the pieces on plates, and pass them to the nearest person that has a pair of serviceable hands.

My daughter, however, has picked just this moment to get finicky.

Daughter: “I want the corner piece with the candy flower.”

Me: “We can try, but the ladies are busy. Don’t be mad, okay?”

Unfortunately, she’s given a regular piece, instead. Tired and upset from the long afternoon, she decides to throw a fit. She starts crying so loudly, it catches the attention of the cake-cutting lady.

Cake Lady: “Oh, poor dear. What happened?”

Me: “She was after the corner piece.”

Cake Lady: “Oh, this one? That’s all right.”

Instead of swapping plates, the lady picked up the candy flower and planted it onto the piece on my daughter’s plate… sending her into another fit. I tried to console her but it was no use; she was holding her plate with white-knuckled hands, bawling uncontrollably at the injustice of it all.

Then, a passing toddler picked up the candy flower from her piece of cake, stuffed it in her mouth happily, and kept going. My daughter was so affronted she could barely breathe. There was nothing left to do at this point but laugh. I wish I’d had my camera ready.